How much specialization?

My problem is I just like to build things . How much do you guys specialize building in a certain (each) province? The problem is that
I end up building basically useless buildings because I don't follow a set path
up the tech tree . I usually play as HRE and have trouble
keeping up with what I want a certain province to finally produce in the later
periods . That is why I also like playing as Danes, not as much to
deal with . Anyway, how much do you experts specialize?

I usually have 4 or 5 home provinces specialized to a certain type. Such as: one light calv, one heavy calv, one infantry, one archer..... stuff like that. But after those 4 or 5 provinces I don't worry about the rest of the provinces and leave them to my whims.

In the beginning it is usually a bit of a scramble but once I have established a base of provinces I start one going after knights, swords, spears, archers, ships and sometimes siege but I usually just buy them (mercs). Overlapping is ok too; a province that can build a variety of units is handy.

Whenever I have a break in building the main focus (need a castle upgrade and don’t have that much $), especially spears or any units that have poor moral, I throw in a religious building for the moral boost. Armor too. Or once I reach the top I go back and armor and church up.

Later It depends on what lands I conquer and how many fronts I have.

Usually in a conquered land if I am just a building or 2 away from being able to make a cool unit I build up to that level, if $ allows. Weather I need the units or not. I just like to have them available.

When I am doing well I build just about anything but especially farms and trade buildings to get $ and those great builder, steward, trader virtues for King and Governors.

It depends on the faction. Look at the faction's top units and note down what they need. Then work towards that goal.
If, on early, you already have a fort somewhere, chose that province to be your chivalric knight producer (if catholic), meaning royal estates, horse guild, armourer IIRC. Building a fort requires 4 years, and its nice to use your starting resources to your advantage.

After the first 4-5 provinces, the rest of my provinces concentrate on farms/trading/mines.

Early in the game when cash is short, I have 6 or so specialized provinces (cavalry, infantry, archers, 2 for ships, politicals).
Which provinces I use depends upon what i start the campaign with, valor bonuses and iron.
I also specialize the provinces with decent raw incomes for farming, and those that can I specialize for mining.
I am always building, how much depends upon my income.
I try to balance between building for better troops and building for a better income.
When I have enough cash, I build in other provinces to increase loyalty, so that I can increase tax. I try not to let any province fall below 140% loyalty. Once there is enough money coming in I can usually keep most provinces at 200%.

It very much depends on the faction - look for resoures, good farming provinces and especially regions that give the +1 valour bonus. Dont forget about establishing a trade network! I agree with what the other posters have said - heres some thoughts of my own
The easiest buidling to get to master level is the horse breeder and +1 valour mounted units are very useful near the start. This is most true for the turks - get Amenia pumping out +2 valour Armenian heavy cavalry and +2 turcommon horse when you get that egyptian province.
Also If you are the Spanish for example build up one province for infantry without the armour upgrades for use in the desert.

I also have a tendency to build up a lot of provinces - I like to have a province dedicated to making one of each type of unit: spears, swords, cav archers, heavy cav, light/medium cav, spies, assassins, religious types, emissaries, artillery, and a couple to build ships.

Early in the game I try to tech up at least five provinces - ships, agents, infantry, cav, and missiles. I choose which province builds what based on province bonuses and upgrade abilities. I like to get my missile troops built in provinces with iron so I can armor them (this is different from most peeps I think who armor their melee troops).

I also build all of the economic and happiness buildings in each province.

Towards the end of the game I can produce a full stack of various units in one turn.

ichi

Originally Posted by dgfred

My problem is I just like to build things . How much do you guys specialize building in a certain (each) province? The problem is that
I end up building basically useless buildings because I don't follow a set path
up the tech tree . I usually play as HRE and have trouble
keeping up with what I want a certain province to finally produce in the later
periods . That is why I also like playing as Danes, not as much to
deal with . Anyway, how much do you experts specialize?

Yeah, I don't have A.D.D. but I tend to lose interest in building construction. I try to at least get some good buildings but I often just leave on Auto Construct Building options.

As HRE I will specialize provinces based on their valor bonus, with the iron province closest to each valor province specialized in the same thing. Saxony and Franconia both heavy cav for the Gothic Cavalry, Tyrolia and Bohemia make pikemen, and Tuscany will get swords. Most of my coastal provinces will make ships (at least until I have control of the seas).

mfberg

Originally Posted by Budwise

Yeah, I don't have A.D.D. but I tend to lose interest in building construction. I try to at least get some good buildings but I often just leave on Auto Construct Building options.

i have never used the auto construct building option. does it work well?

Originally Posted by yesdachi

i have never used the auto construct building option. does it work well?

I've never used it either and I am also curious how well it works.

If I have provinces, then I would have 2 spear/sword producing provinces and 1 cav/archer province. The reson for this is that I lose more spear/sword units in battle, but almost no archer and only a small number of cav. I also have one for assassins, spyes and that kind of units. When I play as the byz, I have even more spear/sword producing provinces, because of higher losses of byz inf.

I have four to five provinces pumping out soldiers, 1-2 with ships and sometimes one with spys and assassins. I generally put all the buildings in these provinces as possible and leave the rest with a bare minimum of buildings.

I´ve got this old -and bad- habit of building everything possible in each and every province, I don´t like unused build options left open. Of cource, it´s a waste of resources and I know it is, but, as the saying goes, old habits die hard, especially the bad ones. A try to specialize only a few provinces had almost proven fatal one time when the French took Aquitania, my sole cavalry-producing province, so my first try in a streamlined production setup almost proved fatal.

I know what you mean about overbuilding unnecessarily especially if you find yourself with a healthy Florin surplus at the end of each round. Unfortunately it seems to divert resources all over and for no particular direction which somewhat hobbles your ability to get the best troops/agents.

I'm not sure how the priorites go when paying for more building projects when you don't have enough cash but it would really suck to not have any progress on some key troop spawning facility cause something non-essential was being built.

If your empire has gotten kinda big then it probably wouldn't hurt to sit down with a pad and figure out which are your key provinces and make sure they get the funds they need to grow. Everywhere else you should then gear towards making money and also building things like churches, border forts etc... to reduce their likelihood to rebel. Another benefit of doing this is that you can narrow down to just a few provinces that you have to watch each year as opposed to sitting there for half an hour checking all of your provinces.

There surely is a fine line between over-building and specialization .
You have to pump out those superior units, but you have to watch your
economy and over-building habits. Sometimes I don't commit to either .

I specialise in building knights first. I always go to Wessex and build a horse farm or Aragon and build a +20% farm when I start a game because I want to build feudal knights as quickly as possible. At the start of each turn I go straight to that province and build the upgrades I need. I do the same with other provinces once I start to get money in.

When I take over a province I usually begin a 10 turn building scheme which costs a total of 1100 florins, usually paid for by the province itself. I build a watchtower and border fort, then a fort, then a town watch and a spearmaker. Spearmen and urban militia can counter most attacks and are the base needs for any army. Anything after tech building for knights and upgrading a province so it can produce base troops are a consideration.

Another problem with specialized provinces is retraining. You can get quite quickly into bottleneck situations if you´ve got a couple of experienced but decimated troops that need retraining and you´ve only got a few specialized provinces where to train troops in the first place.

I specialize early in the game, but as time progresses I don't worry much about it. How & where I do it depends on the faction. I ALWAYS have one building strat units; bishops first (for scouting), then ~6 assassins, then pump bishops while building to spies (then I put one spy in ea. of my provinces).

I also try to get 3 provinces building ships, though only onw is high priority early in the game.

BTW, I play mostly GA.